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  • Film & TV Moderators: ghostfreak

Most Overrated Movies

skywise

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Jul 29, 2002
Messages
1,679
What movies do you hear everyone talk about being fantastic only to find that when you actually see it it's not all everyone made it out to be?

My picks are
1)Donnie Darko (real cool movie, but people talk about it like its the greatest thing that ever happened to film or something)
2)Rushmore
3) ET-I have that fucking movie...even as a child I thought it was borring/lame.
 
I gotta agree with Donnie Darko, thought it was good and but everytime I watch it I still think whats so awe inspiring about it

another one I was kinda let down on was The Usual Suspects, its a good movie but its just so LONG and drawn out and to be honest boring at times,

not a movie but a show, The Soprano's, I am kinda let down about it, Guess I'm not a Mafia Type kinda person, Personally I'll take OZ over the sopranos every day.
 
i agree with ET... and the usual suspects - without the ending it would just be another boring movie!

other overrated movies i think:

CHICAGO!!!!! - what a load of crap.
FORREST GUMP - did i miss something good about this film?

and as for tv shows:

seinfeld
ER
 
semantics...

your overrated movie is somebody else's underrated movie.

Donnie Darko and Rushmore are both all they are cracked up to be and a bag of chips... in my opinion :)

alasdair
 
i was let down by "the great storm". it was 2 hours of waves and thunder and lightning. the visuals were cool, but overall, i was disappointed.

also, titanic. that was some fuckin bullshit. i only liked one part. that was when the ship was sinking and the dude fell off the top and hit his head in the way down and started spinning.
 
I second Titanic. What a pile of shit. A steaming pile of shit.
 
I agree with ^^^

By the way, Pulp Fiction isn't as violent of a movie as you might think. I think the total number of people killed in it is 7.

It also contains numerous plot nuances, subtle ironic twists and hidden references to other movies which make it one of those "you have to watch it more than once" flicks. For more, check this out - http://http://pulp.linuxroot.org/main.shtml
 
cydonorb said:
Its not for you or me or anyone else to decide what is art & what isn't art.

i agree with the general sentiment of your message but i totally disagree with this statement.

it is absolutely for the individual - consumer or supplier - to decide what is and is not art. for themselves.

if somebody - one person, even - in the face of a million dissenting voices - says "Pulp Fiction is art" then it's art. in this case, i'll happily supply that voice. i believe that Pulp Fiction is a work of art.

i agree that "this art is better than that art" or this is "good" art and that is "bad" art is, essentially, a meaningless discussion.

alasdair
 
I was expecting A.I. to be a good flick. Then I wanted my 8 bucks back when I left the theatre. Now there's a steaming pile of shit.
 
Of course I can say that I don't regard Pulp Fiction as a piece of art. I regard as ENTIRELY entertainment and in the film industry there is a line that seperates the two: Art & Entertainment.

For example, a film like Mission Impossible is pure entertainment IMO, as is a film like Pulp Fiction.

you seem to be implying (or perhaps i am wrongly inferring) that entertainment can not be art and art can not be entertaining?

i don't think for one second that the two are mutually exclusive - there's a spectrum involving 0 to n elements of both.

i find that (elements or all of) even the trashiest entertainment can be seen in an art context and some art is highly entertaining.

alasdair
 
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don't get me wrong about US its a good movie but its just sorta drawn out in places, the ending was awesome and everything but getting to the ending is about a half hour to long thats my only gripe with it, I own the movies, its made my list of must own just like I said its just a little to long not overly long but I could have dealt with about 15 minutes of stuff not being in the final cut atleast if not more
 
Finder said:
I was expecting A.I. to be a good flick. Then I wanted my 8 bucks back when I left the theatre. Now there's a steaming pile of shit.
AGREED.

I feel that Casablanca is wayyy overrated. It deffinetly isn't in my top 10.
 
Here's the link again,
http://pulp.linuxroot.org/main.shtml

Many people find biblical references in Pulp Fiction, which I think is surprising considering the anti-establishment/anti-society theme the movie appears to portray. For example, I read an interesting analysis of the movie recently (which I posted in a different thread but I'll post again):

"This is why the popular movie Pulp Fiction, though widely touted as iconoclastic, is at its core highly conservative. Early in the movie, the John Travolta character revels in cultural relativity by regaling his cohort in crime, played by Samuel L. Jackson, with stories of the different standards employed in different countries: a different system of weights and measurements in France, and different, more permissive drug laws in Amsterdam. Jackson's character revels in the relativity as well, until he partakes of a burger called The Big Kahuna (Big Kahuna is the Hawaiian phrase for high priest), after which he "gets religion." When Travolta is invited to partake of the The Big Kahuna, however, he declines. Travolta's refusal to renounce relativisim leads to his demise (the price of relativisim is death). Jackson, thanks to his espousal of absolutism, dodges the bullet. In the end, Pulp Fiction offers moviegoers relief from the vertiginous relativity of post-modernism via conversion to Judeo-Christian dogma ... follow you who can."

Whether or not Tarantino actually intended to portray this pro-Christian theme is debatable, but the concept of it is intriguing. (And by no means do I necessarily agree with the message.) By the way, I agree that Tarantino is not a brilliant filmmaker, but Pulp Fiction is far and away one of the greatest films of the 90s.
 
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I can see how someone could say the Ususal Suspects is overrated just because it gets ridiculously talked up....but I still think its a damned good movie. And as for Amorroarks Casablanca comment, all I can do is shake my head in disgust. Casablanca is one of the greatest films ever made (imho the greatest ) and anyone who doesn't think so is either a communist, a robot, or both. :|
 
Unless a person gives argumentable reasons as to why they feel that the movies they listed were overrated; there is no valid discussion. All these movies mentioned are just personal opinion.
 
(Wow this is a lot longer than I expected it to be, but, whatever)

First off, I want to say that I don't necessarily agree with that analysis, but it's pretty interesting (to myself at least).

1. I beg to differ. Considering the subject matter of the film, I think the natural tendancy is to view Pulp Fiction as iconoclastic (versus, say, reflective of dominant cultural values). The briefcase concept can be seen as religious if you believe the idea that it's Marcellus' soul. The combination for the lock on the briefcase is 666, which is commonly referred to as the devil's number. According to the bible (and I'm not, in the least, claiming to be any expert on the bible - I'm not even christian), as friends have told me, the devil takes the human soul through the back of the neck (hence the band-aid on the back of Marcellus' neck). Also, the human soul is described as "more beautiful than all the treasures in the world" in the bible - Tim Roth describes the contents of the briefcase as "beautiful" when he sees it. And God protected Vince and Jules from the "hand cannon" used by the kid that came out of the bathroom because they were saving one of God's souls. There are also some other religious interpretations, for example Butch and Fabian are symbolic of Adam and Eve, Vince is Judas, etc., but like I said, I'm no expert on the bible, so I don't think I can fully comment on them.
(It should be noted that in an interview, Tarantino himself said that he purposely left the contents of the briefcase undefined, so I guess it will never be known what was actually in it.)

2. The significance of cultural relativity comes down to a clash of widely held, majoritarian views (i.e. typical attitudes) vs. the cultural minority. Travolta talks about the different weight systems, different name for Quarter Pounder, etc. to show Jackson that there is no absolute truth or absolute way of doing things. In other words, different cultures do things differently, and the way one culture does something is not wrong because another culture does it differently. Religion, however, is the opposite of cultural relativity, because it represents an absolute truth (e.g. believe Christ is your savior or else go to hell). Religion, in effect, does not accept the different ways that cultures view things. Travolta accepts cultural relativity, rejects religion, and eventually dies. On the other hand, Jackson accepts religion and lives. This is the irony - Pulp Fiction promotes acceptance of the opposite of what most people would associate the movie with, i.e. accept the norm; accept what society tells you to accept.

3. According to the author, Big Kahuna is a Hawaiian phrase for "high priest." Before Jackson took a bite out of the Big Kahuna burger, he accepted the culture relativity exposed by Travolta (during their conversation in the car about the different weight systems, etc.) After he took a bite of the burger and almost gets killed, Jackson accepts religion and lives throughout the movie. On the other hand, Travolta refuses to take a bite out of the burger, and thus refuses to accept religion, and ends up getting killed by Butch later on.

4. To be honest, I don't really know if the price of relativism really is death. Vince wasn't doomed at this point, however. After "God came down and stopped the bullets" from hitting him and Jules, he was given a chance to accept religion, but didn't. (I guess the timing is a bit off, but you could look at taking a bite out of the burger as a precursor to acceptance or not.) Remember Jules kept wanting to chill out and talk about the "divine intervention", but Vince didn't care about talking about it at all. Vince had the chance to accept the religion later on as well, when Jules called what happened a "miracle", "an act of God", but Vince blew it off as a "freak occurrence" in the coffee shop. This, in effect, sealed Vince's death.

5. Actually, the person who wrote this is a law professor. The book this comes from is actually an excellent book on racism (best book on racism I've ever read). The book is Negrophobia and the author is Jody David Armour.

There's A LOT more than can be said about the details that are woven into this movie, e.g. the gun Butch uses to kill Vince is actually Marcellus' gun; Butch is the one that keyed Vince's car, so Butch is the one Vince is referring to when he talks about the "dickless piece of shit that keyed his car"; at the pawn shop, there is a sign for Killian's Red Beer, but the only letters that are lit up are the ones that spell out "Kill Ed", well, later when Butch gets on the motorcycle, he looks at the key chain, which is in the shape of a big letter "Z" - this adds up to "Kill Zed," which is exactly what he did, etc.

Prior to watching this movie, I had never seen a film that had interwoven stories that came together as beautifully and seamlessly as these stories did. What makes the movie great in my eyes is that I can watch it over and over again and appreciate new things about it almost every time. I can't say that about many movies.
 
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You have pointed out flakey (at best) religious references throughout the film, but you haven't really explained to me how religion was presented in a negative way. I could be wrong here but I thought that an iconoclastic film would be one that attacks or attempts to diminish the reputation\ values of a religion.

The religious references are definitely not of the smack, in-your-face type, so I guess it just depends on the person interpreting them. (Whether or not Tarantino intended created them himself is a whole different discussion, I think.) Religion is not presented in a negative way, contrary to what people might think after a cursory viewing of the film. The whole point of the movie is that it is NOT iconoclastic - that's the irony. (Accept religion and be saved like Jules!) On its face (for example, simply by the subject matter of the movie) it might appear to be iconoclastic by attacking popular culture/ideas, such as religion, but in reality it does not. This is the ultimate beauty of the film, IMO. The fact that I can say that even though I have my own issues against christianity makes the movie even more impressive (in my eyes at least).

So the entire burger significance lies on the word 'kahuna'? That's not very sound. I study film and if I submitted a review that made an analysis with such a lack of basis, I would get a shit mark. I don't mind people having different opinions of films, but I prefer it when they are argued in a sound, coherent manner.

I agree, the burger concept is a bit lacking. But maybe it's just a minor use of symbolism, i.e. SLJ accepted religion by taking a bite out of it.

A law professor wrote this?
and it was published (with misprints and all)?!?
hrm. wasn't expecting that. It seemed very amateurish.
How did this come from a book on RACISM?

Actually, the professor only wrote the originally quote about the burger and iconoclasm in my earlier post. I wrote the rest of it, misprints and all :) . How does it deal with racism? Well, onejustification of racist attitudes/beliefs is that society feels a certain way, e.g. blacks are inferior, so I should not be punished or looked upon differently because society and everybody else feels the same way I do. So this is the culturaly relativity argument, i.e. just because certain majoritarian beliefs and ideas cherish certain values does NOT necessarily mean that they are correct (e.g. blacks really are not inferior). Tying this in to Pulp Fiction - don't accept cultural relativity because there is an absolute truth, which is religion.

Btw, Butch doesn't kill Zed.

Absolutely correct, I was a bit tired when typing this.

Again. A little plain. I mean, what's your point?

I guess it would be considered a little plain, if you thought the movie was overrated to begin with :(. But for me, I love little nuances like these (and there's a lot more of them in the movie). They're little details which most other movies don't take the time to include and are the reasons to watch the movie again.

More can actually be said about the selling of Marcellus' soul concept. Specifically, there is the notion of vulnerability associated with having a soul. For example, once he gets he soul back, he's no longer a bad ass, untouchable crime lord, i.e. a lot of bad shit happens to him after he gets his soul back - he gets sodomized, he loses Jules as an employee, his girlfried almost dies, Vince dies, Butch screws him over, etc.

Have you seen other interwoven story films since?

I have, but nothing jumps out in my mind right now. What are some good ones you've seen?
 
Since I started a thread called, "Donnie Darko - Overrated?" I'd have to say I think Donnie Darko is one of the most overrated.
 
I would have to say, The Sixth Sense. This movie sucked balls. I thought the ending was horrible, all that crap with the poisened girl came from nowhere. And that kid, Haley Joel Osmond or whatever his name is, is higly overrated. Just because you can act scared because you see ghosts, doesn't make you a good actor. I guarentee you the shit I saw the first time i did shrooms was way scarier then that, and I looked more terrified too.
 
Another movie would have to be Traffic. I'm gonna keep this short and just say that it was boring as hell and that the only reason it won anything is because it was about the evils of drugs. And since drugs are so evil and bad it had to be a great movie. I can't look at that kid from That 70's Show the same anymore.
 
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